Everyone in the room grew quiet. Paul reached for the small blue orb on the table.

“Are you going to go?” asked Hugh.

K answered as Paul opened his mouth.

“My predecessor has not set any recommendations.” She said with a shrug.

“I’m going,” said Harte, “I’ll bring two of my apprentices. Time on the move will do them good.”

“We don’t care what you do, Harte.” Shot Arag.

“I’ll remind you, Kylie called me.” Harte growled, “I’m only here as a courtesy.”

“What exactly did she call you about?” asked

Harte stood up, and pointed to the center of the map. He hesitated a moment and looked at Paul.

“I’ll tell them,” Paul said, “That’s why I had them called here.”

Harte sat himself back into his chair and smoothed his robes a bit. The others around the table looked at Paul with anticipation.

“Kylie was a mage with some renown a handful of years back.” Paul started.

Yarla eyed paul suspiciously, “Was she the wandering mage that signed for every tower?”

Paul nodded and continued, “Before she even became a mage she was on a dungeon—”

K cut him off, “The short of it is, she had a fragment for a city core. Her team died.”

Everyone’s eyes grew wide.

“An actual city core?” Yarla asked.

Harte noticed that Hugh didn’t look surprised. The man had focused his vision on the black spot in the middle of the table.

“I just wanted to give them a few details about my history with Kylie.” Paul said.

“I know that’s what you wanted, however, you’re forgetting about the map.” K replied.

“It’s not just a city is it?” asked Hugh looking over to Yarla, “The mana levels outside are high enough to indicate a dungeon birth.”

The room once again looked at the map.

“Not counting the levels in the center, that is a lot of mana,” Yarla commented.

“To get there it will take a few weeks to a few months.” Arag said.

Paul grunted as he shifted in his chair.

“I told Kylie it would take a few weeks, I was hoping we could get something together to get there faster than that.” Said Harte, with a falling face.

“With mana levels like that, monsters will be coming for miles just to get a chance inside.” Paul said.

“There is a village there.” Harte said.

The room grew quiet.

Arag sighed and muttered under his breath.

“How many people live there?” Hugh asked.

“I couldn’t say. The high mana levels were enough to disrupt the srcying at my workshop. It’s a miracle we even managed this.”

“K, we’re going to need to make an extermination.” Paul said, drumming his fingers on the table.

K looked to the room, “A dungeon extermination?”

“When did you scry this, Harte?” asked Hugh.

“Yesterday.” Harte answered.

“We’ll have to do it then.” Yarla said.

“Agreed,” said Arag, “For a newborn, this dungeon appears to be growing at an alarming rate.”

Hugh nodded to K.

“And should we wait for Myra?” she asked.

“No, just count her as abstaining.” Paul said, “I had already sent her to gather supplies for an expedition.”

“What about you, Harte?” K asked.

“I’m not a member of your organization.” He said simply, “But, I am going regardless.”

“Very well,” said K, ”We’ll start the voting for the branch head.”

A piece of paper and a pencil appeared in front of the adventurers. Paul was the first to write something on his paper. When he finished, he folded it neatly in half. The folded page dissolved into the table.

“That’s that,” said Paul as he got up out of his seat.

The other adventurers stood up as well. Harte stood as well.

“I’ll inform the new leader of the branch.” K said.

“Before you do that, notify the oath bound members please.” Paul said, ”We’ll set up a camp at the east gate and leave in three days.”

—-

Vera had watched the caverns for what felt like days. Her work with the centipedes had finished. She wanted to have just enough where their placement felt natural, and not crowded. Something didn’t feel right to her. She had critters in her claimed cavern. Most of them were just taken as she continually pushed out her borders. Adding them as a part to her territory wasn’t that much of a stretch either. She probably wouldn’t have been able to claim the critters if Max hadn’t gone on his little murder spree. He seemed to have done a good job with catching at least one of every type.

She was at a loss of what to do. She could try creating the newt people. Newt men? Newt dudes. She would have to figure out a good name for the race of the newts. It was on her to-do list. Great, what else was there? Vera didn’t have an answer. She would leave her newt person monastery thing alone for now. It was complete enough. She had hit a wall with what she could do with it. She’d have to work with what she had. What else could she do with a cavern?

There were pools of stagnant water, stalactites and stalagmites. It was underground and dark. She could make other monsters to populate the caverns, but she didn’t think she could handle another monster like the centipedes, besides, they liked to stay out of sight. That was already perfect and she couldn’t improve on that. Something else could be done. It came to her: traps! Her winding passages gave her a few ideas. She could make a few pitfalls, maybe a few falling rock traps.

While exploring within her influence she found a sharp turn that gave her an idea. She found a slope with a gentle angle. At the bottom there was a large pool. She started immediately at cutting at the angle and smoothing the slope. The pool itself was quite large and deep. If someone were to fall in, they would have a hard time getting out. Another idea popped into Vera’s mind. She could create another monster for the pool.

>

>

This would be perfect. The answer was in the description of the creature itself. She set out in increasing the size of the catfish. It would have to be able to swallow someone whole. She pushed a minor monster core into the skull of the large catfish. She also created an additional sense organ in the middle of the skull for sound using concepts she remembered about whale echolocation. All in all, she hadn’t put much work into this monster. It might have been due to her creating a variety of creatures and items already. She didn’t mind. If it was easier to piece something together and spit it out, that was an improvement. It needed a name. That was easy too. It was just a large dungeon catfish. With a thought, it materialized above the pool. It fell with a splash.

>

>

She was surprised it was just a crude form of echolocation. She could have sworn she had made it perfectly. It didn’t matter, they would probably just use it to find anyone who fell into a pool. She placed a few more into the water to ensure that if anyone fell in they couldn’t get out. She dropped a dungeon centipede into the water, without the core. The dungeon catfish swam to the surface and gulped the centipede with a single bite before making its way back to the bottom of the pool. That was satisfying. While the centipede wasn’t exactly human sized, the catfish was a lot quicker than she expected. It looked to be a strong swimmer as well.

It was odd. She had never killed anyone before. The thought that she was preparing to kill others hadn’t disturbed her either. It was for self defense. That was a part of it. There was also an odd disconnect too. Maybe it had to do with her wandering the forest. She pushed the thoughts out of her mind. If anything, they were just a distraction. She had more work to do. She found a few more bends that she could copy the same trap and set out to do exactly that. When she dropped the last large catfish into a pond she pulled back to check out her work. They looked good. A determined attacker could find their way through the traps, certainly, but they would have to be surefooted. As an afterthought, she cut a crevice into the wall at each end of the path across the slope and set the crevices as a home location for a centipede. That should do it.

She created a pitfall trap with stalagmites at the bottom to act as spikes. The pits were covered with rock, cut as thin as possible. She copied this and peppered them throughout the caverns. She wanted to add some falling rock traps, but was unable to think of a triggering mechanism. That was fine. There were already centipedes that could fall from overhead. That was worse than falling rocks. If she had a body, the thought would have been enough to make her shiver. What would it be like to have someone in her dungeon? Would anyone appreciate the work that she had put into designing it? Could they understand how making the monsters gave Vera a sense of pride? She could wake Max and ask him, but she thought better of it. She had always let him sleep in the past. There was no reason to wake him now, other than the need for some kind of validation. She could get a ton of work done and surprise him later. That would probably be the best option. Her thoughts went back to killing. She certainly could kill someone if she needed. It wasn’t that she would be doing the killing if they entered anyway. It would just be the hypothetical people getting themselves killed. The traps, and the monsters were all in an effort to keep her own heart safe anyway. Maybe she could be a little more proactive with the monsters. The catfish and the centipedes all seemed to be ambush hunters. She needed something that actively prowled. Maybe a couple of things. She opened up her large dungeon centipede blueprint. This was a bad idea, a very bad idea. Her next monster would have to be big. The minor monster core wouldn’t be enough. She had this. She hesitated. She’d be able to get this done.

>

Nothing happened. The effort she had put into creating the minor monster core was borderline traumatic, probably. Whatever, it worked. Could she make it bigger?

>

It worked. That was surprising. There wasn’t any of the pain, nor the loss of influence through her dungeon. She moved back to her large dungeon centipede blueprint. The minor dungeon core was replaced with the major. She then grew the centipede to the size of a car. The thought of a car gave her another idea. She focused on infusing the rusted iron into its carapace. Bands of the browned metal formed on the black carapace. She spent some time setting the behavior. She didn’t want this to be an ambush predator. It would charge and tackle anyone that it saw. It would also be a good idea to have it wander. That would probably work well. That could be the edge she needed. She also found the perfect name.

>

She ignored the description of this centipede as well. It was still a large creepy thing with too many legs that was also awful at the same time. She placed it in the dungeon. It hit the ground with a kind of clang. Vera probably went overboard on the iron. She watched the centipede to watch what it would do. It stood still for a moment and then shook itself. It straightened out and marched down it’s own path. The feet clicked with each of it’s innumerable steps. The sound echoed through the caverns. This was the worst idea she ever had. She was fine with the centipedes being out of sight, but having one that clicked with each step was pretty awful. Vera pushed her vision the opposite direction of Big Momma. She could probably find more locations for traps, anything to keep her mind off the newest centipede.